WIAW

I was originally going to write a detailed post about Monday night’s special dinner at State Bird Provisions, the “best restaurant in America” as voted by Bon Appetit. However, in the interest of time, I’ll save that post for later when I can really ramble. ;)

Spoiler alert: it was amaaaazzzing.

Instead, I’ll hop on (late to) the WIAW train and show you all how I am (kind of) trying to eat more greens to fit with this month’s theme! Thanks go to Jenn for organizing this link party. Head over to her blog for more green food!

As of this exact moment, I am enjoying the bowl of veggies, quinoa, and baked chicken below. It’s super flavorful thanks to the addition of fresh garlic and toasted sesame seed oil (my new love, remember?).

Once everything was done cooking, I mixed it all up in the skillet, including a chicken breast that I baked in the oven for ~40 minutes. Each side had garlic powder, red pepper flakes, and toasted sesame seed oil.

Last night I enjoyed a bowl of the quinoa/veggies with eggs. Super easy, really healthy, and GREEN!

My new office has Chobani stocked in the fridge. Whenever I think of Chobani, I think of this hilarious MILF Runner blog post and nod my head in agreement. Chobani can be a really exclusive yogurt brand and I generally don’t give them my business, but since it’s free…..

I need to set up my desk! It’s so sparse right now…

I also joined a REAL gym last night. For the first time since 2008 I’m paying for a gym membership… usually I work out in the free gyms provided by work or I go to the gym my mom and sister belong to. This should be interesting!

This week is kind of an unconventional What I Ate Wednesday. For some more “normal” eats, check out other people’s submissions on Jenn’s blog.

I woke up this morning with a special delivery at the door.

A couple weeks ago, my mom and I decided we would participate in a 3-day cleanse from Pressed Juicery. I’ve heard of this juicery before because its located in downtown LA. In total, there are 7 so-cal locations and 2 nor-cal locations. They deliver throughout the country and guarantee freshness. Seems promising, right? I picked out the choices of drinks 1-6 for each of us… 2 greens, 2 roots, 1 citrus, and one “dessert” juice.

In addition to each of the six juices we drink throughout the day, we also have one drink to chug throughout the day and another for just before bed:

chlorophyll water: hydrating antioxidants

aloe very water: aids in elimination and helps the immune system

We just started today and it’s going decently. I really like the greens, citrus, and chocolate almond drink. I couldn’t even finish the first roots drink because it tasted like pure beets and I’m not a huge fan.

Crossing my fingers the next two days go smoothly (haaa, so punny). This cleanse sure is different from the past two weeks of indulgence- with the birthday, Vegas, and everything in between.

What, it’s Wednesday? I guess it’s time to do a quick look back on recent eats for the WIAW link-up. Head over to Jenn’s blog to check out the 200 other participating blogs!

I’m in bed right now, enjoying a slice of homemade cheesecake and a mug of vanilla tea, while assembling the post. I’ve also got Once Upon A Time on in the background. That show really slowed down this season, didn’t it?

Let’s start with Lunch on Monday – I finally met up with Kristine, the fabulous blogger behind Vine to Wind. I loooove her blog! Our offices are surprisingly close to each other, so a lunchtime meetup was perfect. Kristine treated me to lunch in one of Google’s amazing cafeterias. (Thanks!!) I made an overflowing turkey jalapeno sandwich, a spinach salad with pepperoncini, eggs, and pumpkin seeds, and grabbed some sweet potato fries.

I am so happy we finally met! Now I’m dying to go on one of the gorgeous SF runs she does every weekend! Before heading back to work, I grabbed a delicious samoas-inspired cookie. Oh man. Too good.

Dinner on Monday was a real treat. Sarah and I were lucky enough to go to another dinner at Cindy’s house for Bachelor night!

To start: kale salad with honey-crisp apples, almonds, and parmesan

The star of the show: roasted turkey (Cindy followed a recipe from Molly Stevens’ All About Roasting cookbook)

Main plate: The roasted turkey; a medley of roasted sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and grapes; and rice pilaf! Cindy makes her rice pilaf from scratch. Move over Rice-a-Roni, you’ve got nothing on Cin.

I love our girl chats. And wine. It’s always soooo nice to catch up with these two. Before we sat down to watch The Bachelor’s Women Tell All, Cindy whipped up dessert #1.

She combined frozen berries and contrineau in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. After about 5 minutes on medium-high heat, she poured the berry/sauce over vanilla bean ice cream and added chopped dark chocolate. <- Go ahead and reread that sentence. DROOL!

Every bite was heavenly!

Sarah, Cindy, and I parked our butts on the couch, super excited about The Bachelor.

Thoughts:

– I want AshLee’s new hairstyle. But I can’t do extensions. I’ll challenge my hair stylist, Joanie, to replicate.
– Can Chris Harrison start dating Sarah?? She’s so pretty and nice and calm, I think they’d be a good pair.
– I don’t want Desiree to the next Bachelorette. I like her, but I just don’t think she’s right for the role.
– AshLee’s accusation that Sean said he has zero feelings for the two remaining women? What the what? That was awkward.
– Little Miss Nevada, aka the Tierraist, had the worst dress. If she can’t apologize for her time in the house, can she at least apologize for that?!!!

I did say dessert #1 above… because Cindy had TWO desserts for us. I bet Nicole is rolling her eyes because she gave up dessert for Lent and now only craves “salty” food. Anyways, Cin brought out homemade cheesecake for us!

We were a little lot excited.

Thanks for a wonderful night (AGAIN!), Cindy! We’ll be back next week with a bigger crew for the finale!

And since it’s WIAW Goes Green this month, here’s Tuesday’s Lunch to prove that I’m getting some greens in (and not just amazing sweets). It was Taco Tuesday in case you forgot how that happens every. single. Tuesday.

The ironic part is that I had to go to the dentist this morning to fill a cavity. UGH.

Question: Do you watch the Bachelor? Who is your favorite? NO SPOILERS! Ice cream or cheesecake? What’s your favorite “green” produce?

N: Hey, happy WIAW! We’re here with a sister post today. It’s always fun when we can combine our thoughts into one post… even though we are a few hundred miles away! Check out Jenn’s blog for more WIAW goodness.

L: Have you seen this kind of magnet? We had one of these at my job in Monterey. If I was back in that office right now, I’d move the magnet to highlight Exhausted. Oooph. This girl needs more sleep.

N: …And I would move the magnet to highlight Happy in the third row, even though Mischievous looks pretty funny…

Lauren’s Breakfast

L: Tuesday’s breakfast was boring oat bran so I’ll talk about Monday instead. I had homemade coffee cake, strawberries, and Bellwether Farms’ sheep milk strawberry yogurt. Our Marketing team lead is an amazing caterer on the side and I attended the first half of her marketing “offsite.” I get so excited for her meetings because she usually brings fresh, tasty food… and awesome baked goods.

L: I mean look at the streusel!

Lauren’s Lunch

L: After an odd Tuesday morning (early wake up call, helping my mom out with a doctors appt, her nausea, my fainting, cops swarming my neighbors house, etc), Kyle brought my mom and I takeout sushi. (Thank you!!) It was so thoughtful and sweet of him to pick up some food since our morning didn’t go as originally planned and I was behind schedule. LOVE him.

Lauren’s Dinner

L: For dinner, my mom and I had another fantastic man come to the rescue – David! He dropped by my house with Italian take out. Do these guys know that I have zero food at home? (JK… I have Dr. Pepper 10, popcorn, and dried rosemary?) Thank you, David!!

L: He stopped at Florentine’s – the Italian restaurant our family went to ALL THE TIME when we were growing up. He picked up a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, pesto angel hair pasta, and raviolis. I put a little of each on my plate, along with a side salad and fresh tuna leftover from lunch. OH MY. I ate some gooooood food today!

L: The absolute best part about Florentine’s? Their “bread and spread.” The lunch line at my high school used to stock Florentine’s for some random reason, and almost every day I’d get a bag of their fantastic bread and a cup of spread, walk to homeroom, and dig in. I don’t know what’s more dangerous, the fluffy wedges of bread or the zesty cheese dip. I had 3 slices of bread tonight and then started dipping croutons in the spread just so I could savor all of it.

Nicole’s Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner

N: Unlike Lauren, my meals were pretty boring and grab-and-go today.

N: Blurry egg whites and oatmeal, an apple and green tea in between classes, salad and veggie pizza for lunch, egg/egg whites with mushrooms while studying in the afternoon, banana and pb2, and a late pickup lunch from the sorority house at 10 PM. The bbq lentils were yummy!

N: My dinner was so late because I did have one exciting thing yesterday – my first NBA experience! My friend invited me to the Clippers vs. Bobcats game and it was a fun time :)

N: I was more excited to see Lamar Odom (from Khloe and Lamar duhhh) than to actually watch the basketball game. I do enough of that at USC basketball games ;)

Question: “How Are You Feeling Today,” magnet-wise? Are you a big NBA fan?